Old Testament

A tablet from the Atrahasis Epic – a Babylonian account of the Flood. [Source: Wikipedia]The following public domain article is now available on-line in pdf:

Theophilus G. Pinches [1856-1934], “The Old and New Versions of the Babylonian Creation and Flood Stories,” Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 47 (1915): 301-329.

The Old and New Versions of the Babylonian Creation and Flood Stories

Forty years have passed since the late George Smith published his Chaldean Account of Genesis, dedicated to Sir Henry Rawlinson, the great English pioneer of Assyriology. We all remember, or at least realize, what a sensation Smith’s discoveries made, especially the account of the Flood, which traversed the same ground, point by point, as the Hebrew version in Genesis. It was a triumph for our self-taught countryman, and we all know, moreover, to what it led-namely, the despatch of the enterprising Museum – official to the East, first for the Daily Telegraph, and later for the trustees of the British Museum. He was favoured with a fair amount of success, for he found a fragment which was at first supposed to fill a gap of the eleventh tablet of the Gilgames-series, which gives the story of the Flood in reality it was a portion of another version-as well as fragments of Creation-stories. His third and last trip to the nearer East, however, had fatal results, and he never saw his native land again. He had acquired, nevertheless, a large amount of chronological material, and Biblical scholars are his debtors for that as much as for his acquisitions in the realm of Babylonian tradition.

Though the two legends which Smith discovered were written in Semitic Babylonian-now known to be Akkadian-it was clear to all, from the names of the deities and other personages, that they were of non-Semitic or Sumerian origin. The Creation series, which seems to have been written on six tablets, later increased to seven, recorded how everything was at first created and brought forth by Tiawath,” the sea,” and Apsft, “the Deep” or “Ocean.” From these came an only son, named Mummu. Other primeval deities, however, were later regarded as the children of Tiawath-Laymu and Layamu: Ansar and Kisar, the host of heaven and the host of earth; and then came Anu, the god of the heavens (with, it may be supposed, his spouse Anatum). At this point the record breaks off, but Damascius supplies the wanting portion, namely, the information that the successors of Anu were lllinos (cuneiform Illila) and Aos (i.e., Ea or Aa). Of Illila, the god of the earth, the spouse was called Ninlila: and the spouse of Ea or Aa is given by Damascius as Dauke, the Dam-kina of the inscriptions. “And of Aos and Dauke,” adds Damascius, “was born a son called Belos, who, they say, is the fabricator of the world – the Creator.”

Welcome to the August Biblical Studies Carnival!

This is the first Biblical Studies Carnival I have ever hosted. I have learnt a great deal from the experience and hope that you enjoy reading the post.

Old Testament

Scot McKnight has an interesting discussion of how Christian theologians in the 1800s used the idea of “Pre-Adamites” and points out some of the motivations behind the various theories adopted. Guy Waters considers whether it is essential that Adam be understood as being a historical person and concludes in the affirmative.

Claude Mariottini analyses Richard E. Averbeck’s fascinating essay “Breath, wind, spirit and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament”. Brian Collins considers the significance of “land” in Genesis 8 and 9 (here | here). Craig Keener has a three-part series on the Conquest entitled “Slaughtering the Canaanites” (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3). Rusty Osborne has a helpful study on the correct translation of “Asherah”. Rick Sumner has a discussion about the enduring value of Samuel Sandmel’s paper on “Parallelomania”. I found it interesting that he reaches the same conclusion as I did when I uploaded the article to the Web in 2008. Peter Mead offers an overview of Psalm 46 and some of the reactions it can evoke.

Apocryphal Literature

Apocryphicity has a series on three posts about texts due to be published in Brent Landau, ed., New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | and announces a call for papers for a symposium to take place in New York at the end of September.

Phillippians (apparently “Bible-book of the month”) is covered by Lynn Cohick in a video series (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5) (Thanks to Jeremy Bouma for posting the links.) Phil Long continues his insightful exposition of Philippians on Reading Acts: 3:1-3, 3:4-6, 3:7-11, 3:12-17, 4:1-3, 4:4-7).

In the light of current events in and around Israel, Ian Paul tackles the notoriously complex issue of Israel’s future in the land (Part 1 | Part 2) and concludes:

Because of all this, I do not believe that, remarkable though it is, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1947 is a ‘fulfilment’ of ‘end times’ ‘prophecies.’ Neither do I believe that Israel has a divine right to the land which trumps all other rights. I do want to defend the right of Israel to exist, and to be a particular homeland for Jews around the world, and to use reasonable force to defend itself—like any other nations. But I do this on grounds other than ‘divine right’ or ‘prophecy.’ [emphasis in original]

Donald Hagner shares his recollections of NT scholar George Eldon Ladd who clearly had a lasting influence on his students (Part 1 | Part 2). Wayne Coppins shares an insight into German NT scholarship with a post on Benjamin Schliesser and the Cosmic Interpretation of pistis in Gal 3.23, 25.

Chiastic Structure of Ephesians 5:21-33

Kay Bonikowsky looks at the chiastic structure of Ephesians 5:21-33 and provides this superb illustration (right).

Matthew R. Malcolm has a couple of posts on the alleged dynastic conflict between the family of Annas and the family and followers of Jesus, which he considers worthy of scholarly consideration (see here and here). D. Miller looks at what Luke says (or does not say about the observance of the law in Luke-Acts (here & here).

BiblcalStudiesOnline provides links to a video lecture series by Richard Bauckham and Chris Marshall on the historical Jesus at Carey College, 7-8 August 2014 and Jim Davila foresees a Colloquium on the Star on Bethlehem to take place in October.

The book focuses on the Gospels, but also addresses wider questions of codicology (i.e., the physical features of the codex itself). Smith then probes with considerable expertise the scribal hands (he argues for more than one scribe), and marginalia, and various other matters. The result is surely the most detailed study of Codex Alexandrinus in many years, and a ground-breaking study of the Gospels in this manuscript in particular.

Biblical Languages

Jeremy Bouma presents five good reasons why learning biblical languages is still important and Jim West extends an invitation to those wanting to learn Hebrew.

Jack Sasson’s elevation to an honorary council member of the International Association for Assyriology is recorded by Jim Davila. Peter Leithart has a post on how the story of Noah’s Flood is depicted on 3rd Century AD coinage and Matthew R. Malcolm ponders the significance of a 2nd Century AD letter square from Smyna.

Inerrancy

The inerrancy debate continues with John Byron re-posting the results of the latest US Gallop poll on the Bible’s historical accuracy. Scot McKnight provides a review of Inerrancy: Five Views dealing with objections. He writes in a later post that he thinks that inerrancy:

…is a disruptive child in the theological classroom. He or she gets all the attention of teacher and students. A biblical view of inerrancy demotes it under the word true, all as part of God’s choice to communicate efficiently and sufficiently. When the word “true” governs the game it’s a brand new, healthy game. Good teachers know how to handle disruptive children.

Michael Bird responds to McKnight’s critique of his section of the book and has some general thoughts to add here. Chris Tilling takes issue (well, 17 issues to be exact) with Albert Mohler’s contribution to the same volume. Michael Bird commends two recent articles by Armin Baum on inerrancy and canonicity.

Greg Beale contributes the first of what is to be a series of responses to Peter Enns’s “Aha” Moments. Christopher Skinner offers his take on the new series here.

And Finally…

I wanted to thank Phil Long for inviting me to host the August Biblical Studies Carnival. It has been tremendously helpful for me to work through the biblioblogs systematically and it encouraged me to update my blogrolls (please update your links to biblicalstudiesorguk blogspot com, which is now redundant). My apologies if I haven’t included your favourite post above. Despite being the holiday season, many blogs were still surprisingly active.

September’s Biblical Studies Carnival

Next month’s Biblical Studies Carnival will be hosted by Mike Skinner at cataclysmicblog.com. There are still vacancies for Carnival hosts for November and December 2014 and for all months in 2015. Please contact Phil Long [plong(at)gbcol.edu] if you can help.

You can find the download link <<HERE>>. I have an idea that most people will find that the colour maps (e.g. see right) are more useful than the text, so have included some high resolution .png’s of them. All this material is in the Public Domain.

This is the last of the Schwiech Lectures that I have to hand at the moment, but I am trying to source copies of the others which now in the Public Domain.